Following AMD’s reveal of a 32 core Threadripper 2 (12nm Zen+ not Zen 2) processor using all four dies coming in Q3, it is only natural that new TR4 socket motherboards would emerge. MSI was well prepared for the reveal with its upcoming X399 MEG Creation motherboard on display at Computex. The massive E-ATX motherboard features a black PCB with silver accents and two huge heatsinks covering the VRMs in the top left and the chipset and three M.2 slots in the bottom right. The TR4 socket sits between eight DDR4 DIMM slots and is topped by a ludicrous 16+3 power phase (doubled eight for vCore, the remaining phases for vSoC) cooled by a large heatsink. The board takes power from two 8-pin and one 24-pin power connector.

Below the processor sits four PCI-E x16 slots (wired x16/x8/x16/x8) and a single PCI-E x1 slot. There are eight SATA 6 Gbps ports along the right edge of the board and below the L shaped heatsink users can install three M.2 solid state drives. MSI claims that enthusiasts can install up to seven M.2 drives using the 3 M.2 slots on the motherboard as well as four slots provided by a PCI-E add-on card (e.g. MSI Xpander AERO PCIe).

Around back the X399 MEG Creation offers up 10 USB 3.1 ports (one Type-C), two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two Wi-Fi antenna connectors for the 2x2 802.11ac Wi-Fi and BT 5.0 radios, and six audio outputs (5 analog, one optical).

The massive Threadripper motherboard reportedly has 10 PWM fan connectors and three temperature sensors to aid in cooling and overclocking. The board also has handy BIOS flashing and overclocking features galore.

The X399 MEG Creation supports Threadripper as well as the upcoming Threadripper 2000 series processors and should make for an interesting setup for enthusiasts! The lack of 10 Gigabit Ethernet is dissapointing, but at least the two gigabit NICs are Intel based (MSI is using Intel for the Wi-Fi as well). If you are curious about the new X399 board, Tom's Hardware and TechPowerUp managed to snap several photos of the high-end motherboard at the MSI booth. If you prefer video, Gamer's Nexus has a short clip of it here.

KitGuru is reporting that the massive motherboard will cost upwards of $500. MSI has not yet revealed a launch date. Presumably we can expect the X399 MEG Creation to be available sometime in Q3 just in time for the Threadripper 2000 series availability.

Sorry I couldn't remember which story this comment was on. For strictly gaming probably the Intel setup + overclocking. If it was between intel and amd HEDT for a daily driver gaming + other stuff I would likely go with Threadripper 2. Just my 2 threads :-).

Neither NVMe drives in a RAID configuration, nor Intels Optane drives will give you any meaningful increase in gaming performance. They will reduce loading times, but only marginally (barely noticeable) compared to an ordinary SATAIII SSD. Both options should only ever be considered if you're going to use the system for rendering or similar heavy data processing.

Threadrippers are not meant for gaming. They do it well, but you would be better off with an 4-8 core intel/amd CPU since you want to focus on single threaded performance (higher clocks > more cores).

Your gaming performance is primarily determined by your GPU, so that's probably where you should put your money.

It would be interesting if you could get an Epyc processor in addition to a 32 core Threadripper for testing to see how much of a difference 8 channel vs. 4 channel memory makes for applications that are likely to run on it. I wouldn't mind having an Epyc processor, especially for work. I can't justify the cost for home use at all. Just populating all 8 memory channels would be a huge expense. It is going to be difficult to make comparisons. Threadripper is 16 Zen cores. Epyc is upto 32 cores, but they are also Zen while the Theadripper 2 will have Zen+ cores, but half the memory channels.

I have thread ripper 1st generation and now I feel upset because the Threadripper 2 will launch soon. if anyone has a problem with Apple products take help from this site:https://www.appletechnicalsupportnumbers.com/apple-id-support/